Inside Creationism\u27s Trojan Horse: A Closer Look at Intelligent Design

Intelligent design (ID) creationists at the Discovery Institute\u27s Cen­ter for Science and Culture claim to be advocating good science and education. Although they promote ID as a full-scale scientific revolution, it is really the newest variant of American creationism. Proponents have no scientific data to support their contention that a supernatural designer explains biological phenomena better than natural processes. They have waged a thirteen-year PR and political campaign to translate their religious views, which include religious exclusionism and antisecularism, into public policy. Only six states remain exempt from their attempts to influence science standards, curricula, or textbooks. When approaching educational policymakers, they disguise their agenda with seemingly innocuous terminology co-opted from legitimate scientific and educational discourse. ID creationists work through local, state, and national religious orga­nizations and religious/political operatives, including members of Congress. If they succeed, they will damage both science education and the separation of church and state

Improved Vectors for Selecting Resistance to Hygromycin

Resistance to hygromycin B is an important dominant selectable marker in fungal transformation. Our goal was to improve vectors for hygromycin selection by making the gene more compact, by eliminating sites for commonly used restriction enzymes, and by subcloning the modified gene into convenient vectors. These improvements were made by modifying pCSN43 (Staben et al. 1989 Fungal Genetics Newsl. 36:79-81) through three rounds of megaprimer mutagenesis (Aiyar and Leis, 1993 Biotechniques 14:366-368 ), a technique based on polymerase chain reaction amplification. Plasmid pCSN43 has a 2.4 kb SalI fragment containing the bacterial hph gene (Gritz and Davies, 1983 Gene 25:179-188), encoding hygromycin B phosphotransferase, under control of the Aspergillus nidulans trpC promoter and terminator (Mullaney et al. 1985 MGG 199:37-45

Literacy and mental disorders

Purpose of review: This review examines recent evidence on the comorbidity between literacy problems and psychiatric disorder in childhood and discusses possible contributory factors. Recent findings: Recent studies confirm the substantial overlap of literacy problems with a range of emotional/behavioural difficulties in childhood. Literacy problems and inattention may share genetic influences, contributing to associations with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. To an extent, links with conduct problems may be also mediated by attentional difficulties. In addition, findings suggest bidirectional influences whereby disruptive behaviours impede reading progress and reading failure exacerbates risk for behaviour problems. Associations between literacy problems and anxiety disorders are not entirely mediated by inattentiveness. Rather, comorbid anxiety disorders seem likely to arise from the stressors associated with reading failure. Findings in relation to depression are less consistent, but suggest that poor readers may be vulnerable to low mood. Children with autism seem more likely to face problems in reading comprehension than the decoding difficulties more prominent in other disorders. Summary: Literacy problems are associated with increased risks of both externalizing and internalizing disorders in childhood, with different mechanisms likely to be implicated in each case. When comorbid problems occur, each is likely to require separate treatment

Activin and TGFβ use diverging mitogenic signaling in advanced colon cancer.

BackgroundUnderstanding cell signaling pathways that contribute to metastatic colon cancer is critical to risk stratification in the era of personalized therapeutics. Here, we dissect the unique involvement of mitogenic pathways in a TGFβ or activin-induced metastatic phenotype of colon cancer.MethodMitogenic signaling/growth factor receptor status and p21 localization were correlated in primary colon cancers and intestinal tumors from either AOM/DSS treated ACVR2A (activin receptor 2) -/- or wild type mice. Colon cancer cell lines (+/- SMAD4) were interrogated for ligand-induced PI3K and MEK/ERK pathway activation and downstream protein/phospho-isoform expression/association after knockdown and pharmacologic inhibition of pathway members. EMT was assessed using epithelial/mesenchymal markers and migration assays.ResultsIn primary colon cancers, loss of nuclear p21 correlated with upstream activation of activin/PI3K while nuclear p21 expression was associated with TGFβ/MEK/ERK pathway activation. Activin, but not TGFβ, led to PI3K activation via interaction of ACVR1B and p85 independent of SMAD4, resulting in p21 downregulation. In contrast, TGFβ increased p21 via MEK/ERK pathway through a SMAD4-dependent mechanism. While activin induced EMT via PI3K, TGFβ induced EMT via MEK/ERK activation. In vivo, loss of ACVR2A resulted in loss of pAkt, consistent with activin-dependent PI3K signaling.ConclusionAlthough activin and TGFβ share growth suppressive SMAD signaling in colon cancer, they diverge in their SMAD4-independent pro-migratory signaling utilizing distinct mitogenic signaling pathways that affect EMT. p21 localization in colon cancer may determine a dominant activin versus TGFβ ligand signaling phenotype warranting further validation as a therapeutic biomarker prior to targeting TGFβ family receptors

Sleep Disturbance, Symptoms, Psychological Distress, and Health-Related Quality of Life in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

Background: Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a devastating disease characterized by elevated pulmonary pressures that lead to right heart failure and premature mortality. Patients experience multiple symptoms including dyspnea, fatigue and chest pain, but little is known about sleep disturbance, PAH symptoms, psychological distress and health-related quality of life (HRQOL) in PAH. Aim: The purpose of this study was to describe the occurrence of sleep disturbance and compare PAH symptoms, psychological distress, and HRQOL across severity of sleep disturbance. Methods: One hundred and ninety-one participants completed a socio-demographic and clinical data form, PAH Symptom Severity Scale, Profile of Mood States (POMS) short form and the Medical Outcomes Short Form-36 (SF-36). Descriptive statistics were used to describe sleep disturbances; analysis of variance models were used to quantify differences in PAH symptoms, psychological distress and HRQOL by sleep disturbance groups. Results: The majority of participants (n=162, 85%) were women with a mean age of 53 years. Sixty-five (34%) reported no sleep disturbance; 54 (28%) mild sleep disturbance; 41 (22%) moderate sleep disturbance; and 31 (16%) severe sleep disturbance. Those reporting higher sleep disturbance severity reported worse PAH symptoms, psychological distress, and HRQOL. Conclusions: Sleep disturbance is a significant finding in PAH. Increasing levels of sleep disturbance are associated with worse PAH symptoms, psychological states, and health-related quality of life. Interventions that decrease sleep disturbances may improve symptoms and HRQOL

Flexible use of a dynamic energy landscape buffers a marine predator against extreme climate variability

Animal migrations track predictable seasonal patterns of resource availability and suitable thermal habitat. As climate change alters this 'energy landscape', some migratory species may struggle to adapt. We examined how climate variability influences movements, thermal habitat selection and energy intake by juvenile Pacific bluefin tuna (Thunnus orientalis) during seasonal foraging migrations in the California Current. We tracked 242 tuna across 15 years (2002-2016) with high-resolution archival tags, estimating their daily energy intake via abdominal warming associated with digestion (the 'heat increment of feeding'). The poleward extent of foraging migrations was flexible in response to climate variability, allowing tuna to track poleward displacements of thermal habitat where their standard metabolic rates were minimized. During a marine heatwave that saw temperature anomalies of up to +2.5 degrees C in the California Current, spatially explicit energy intake by tuna was approximately 15% lower than average. However, by shifting their mean seasonal migration approximately 900 km poleward, tuna remained in waters within their optimal temperature range and increased their energy intake. Our findings illustrate how tradeoffs between physiology and prey availability structure migration in a highly mobile vertebrate, and suggest that flexible migration strategies can buffer animals against energetic costs associated with climate variability and change

Vermont Hospitals\u27 Emergency Department Utilization Charges by Insurance Payer

Objective: To identify the differences in emergency department (ED) charges across all insurance payers and to evaluate ED charges for Medicaid beneficiaries over time. Methods: The Vermont Department of Health\u27s publicly-available Hospital Discharge Data Set (HDD) data for 2012, 2014 and 2016 was analyzed by insurance group and year, as predictor variables, with age and sex as covariates. The primary outcome variable was total charges as a binary variable. Results: Medicare cases had the greatest odds of high total charge visits. The odds of Medicare records having high total charges were 65.0% greater than the odds of Medicaid records having high total charges, holding age group and sex constant. For records representing Medicaid beneficiaries, the odds of high total charges in 2012 and 2014 were 41.1% and 22.3% lower, respectively, than the odds of high total charges in 2016, holding rurality, age, and sex constant. Conclusions: Medicare cases had the greatest odds of being classified as high total charge visits. The odds of Medicaid cases producing high total charges increased during each period from 2012 to 2016

Energy-water analysis of the 10-year WECC transmission planning study cases.

In 2011 the Department of Energy's Office of Electricity embarked on a comprehensive program to assist our Nation's three primary electric interconnections with long term transmission planning. Given the growing concern over water resources in the western U.S. the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) requested assistance with integrating water resource considerations into their broader electric transmission planning. The result is a project with three overarching objectives: (1) Develop an integrated Energy-Water Decision Support System (DSS) that will enable planners in the Western Interconnection to analyze the potential implications of water stress for transmission and resource planning. (2) Pursue the formulation and development of the Energy-Water DSS through a strongly collaborative process between the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC), Western Governors Association (WGA), the Western States Water Council (WSWC) and their associated stakeholder teams. (3) Exercise the Energy-Water DSS to investigate water stress implications of the transmission planning scenarios put forward by WECC, WGA, and WSWC. The foundation for the Energy-Water DSS is Sandia National Laboratories Energy-Power-Water Simulation (EPWSim) model (Tidwell et al. 2009). The modeling framework targets the shared needs of energy and water producers, resource managers, regulators, and decision makers at the federal, state and local levels. This framework provides an interactive environment to explore trade-offs, and 'best' alternatives among a broad list of energy/water options and objectives. The decision support framework is formulated in a modular architecture, facilitating tailored analyses over different geographical regions and scales (e.g., state, county, watershed, interconnection). An interactive interface allows direct control of the model and access to real-time results displayed as charts, graphs and maps. The framework currently supports modules for calculating water withdrawal and consumption for current and planned electric power generation; projected water demand from competing use sectors; and, surface and groundwater availability. WECC's long range planning is organized according to two target planning horizons, a 10-year and a 20-year. This study supports WECC in the 10-year planning endeavor. In this case the water implications associated with four of WECC's alternative future study cases (described below) are calculated and reported. In future phases of planning we will work with WECC to craft study cases that aim to reduce the thermoelectric footprint of the interconnection and/or limit production in the most water stressed regions of the West

Exile Vol. V No. 2

EDITORIAL 4-6 Jamais (poem) by Iris Carroll 6 The Minister\u27s Narcissus by Julia Santucci 7-18 DRAWING by Anne Irgens 12 Solitude (poem) by Christine Condit 18 Island Lady\u27s Bill-Green Sky (poem) by Robert Wehling 19 Looking for Enchantment (poem) by Dennis Trudell 19 Silence (woodcut) by Carol Wilson 20 Saturday Night (story) by Ed Grimm 21-25 On Unemployment (poem) by William Bennett 25 Atlas (poem) by Bob Canary 26 A Psychology of Confrontation (essay) by Barbara Haupt 27-35 Urban (woodcut) by Carol Wilson 36 The Way They Make Guys (story) by Dennis Trudell 37-38 This story [ The Minister\u27s Narcissus ] by Julia Santucci has been awarded the semi-annual EXILE-Denison Bookstore creative writing prize. (pg 18